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gave an excellent opportunity to study local geography, and with memory, pencil, and brush the incidents of the trip were well preserved for expression in the schoolroom.
The knowledge gained in the parks gave great pleasure to
IN THE RIVER AT MOMENCE
the children, as they rolled along the railways on the following excursions, in the recognition and naming of the trees near the tracks and in the forests beyond. It was a matter of surprise that, if a name was given at all to a tree seen from the car win- dow, it was almost always correct, leading one to wonder what might possibly be accomplished for the children of the city of Chicago if our park commissioners would set apart a certain small portion of land in each park in which might be cultivated, not only familiar trees, but also the common grains and vegeta- bles. If the children had seen such beds of plants, they would not have called a potato patch a corn field, nor a hornet's nest in a large tree a cabbage, nor would they have expected to pick potatoes from vines in the same manner as grapes are gathered. In the excursions to the country the good accomplished
